Giving to Want
by MsMonroe
Summary: Post-122. Brian lies in bed four days after the bashing, evaluates the bashing, and uncovers his true feelings for Justin.


Giving to Want  
  
Disclaimer: The characters of "Queer as Folk" are owned by Ron Cowen & Daniel Lipman, and the lyrics to "My All" are owned by M. Carey and W. Afansieff. Both are used without permission.  
  
  
  
I am thinking of you  
  
In my sleepless solitude tonight  
  
If it's wrong to love you  
  
Then my heart just won't let me be right  
  
'Cause I've drowned in you  
  
And I won't pull through  
  
Without you by my side  
  
  
  
I'd give my all to have  
  
Just one more night with you  
  
I'd risk my life to feel  
  
Your body next to mine  
  
'Cause I can't go on  
  
Living in the memory of our song  
  
I'd give my all for your love tonight  
  
  
  
Baby can you feel me?  
  
Imagining I'm looking in your eyes  
  
I can see you clearly  
  
Vividly emblazoned in my mind  
  
And yet you're so far  
  
Like a distant star  
  
I'm wishing on tonight  
  
  
  
I'd give my all to have  
  
Just one more night with you  
  
I'd risk my life to feel  
  
Your body next to mine  
  
'Cause I can't go on  
  
Living in the memory of our song  
  
I'd give my all for your love tonight  
  
  
  
I'd give my all to have  
  
Just one more night with you  
  
I'd risk my life to feel  
  
Your body next to mine  
  
'Cause I can't go on  
  
Living in the memory of our song  
  
I'd give my all for your love tonight  
  
  
  
(I'd) give my all for your love  
  
Tonight  
  
  
  
Lyrics by M. Carey/Music by M. Carey and W. Afansieff. Copyright 1997. Performed by Mariah Carey  
  
  
  
****  
  
My arm lays on his pillow. I run the cotton of the pillowcase through my fingers like a spider web. I gaze at the clock. 4:30 a.m. The sun'll rise soon. Fuck the sun. What does it matter anyway? I haven't slept in days.  
  
Over and over I hear the thud of his head connect with the bat. The even sicker thud of his head hitting the concrete. I hear myself scream his name - "JUSTIN!" What was I thinking? Yelling never saved anybody; only makes your voice hoarse.  
  
I hit Chris. Hit him hard enough to knock him down. He still got away. Little prick. I should have known better than to be with Justin like I was at the prom after Chris came hunting Justin down on Liberty Avenue. I should have known better than to be with him like that around any of those people. I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it once more: "There are two kinds of straight people: ones that hate you to your face, and ones that hate you to your back."  
  
Blood. There was blood everywhere. "JUSTIN!" There I went screaming again. He wouldn't answer me. More blood. I knelt beside him, holding him in my arms. The feeling I had was something I'd never felt before. Trying to explain it would do about as much good as screaming. It wasn't grief. It was beyond that.  
  
I repeated the word "no" it seemed a thousand times. One "no" for every thing I didn't want to happen. NO. . .he can't be hurt. . .NO. . .Chris can't get away. . .NO. . .he can't not speak to me. . .NO. . .he can't. . .die.  
  
The paramedics came. I called them. My hands were shaking; it was hard to hold the cell phone. My voice reverberated off the walls. It couldn't be my voice. The voice I heard echo was too frantic and hysterical to be mine. But it WAS mine. Goddamit, I was going to pieces.  
  
Paramedics arrived so fast. . .the phone; it was still in my hand. Justin was lying against my shoulder. They lifted him off me. They strapped him into a stretcher, unintentionally rough.  
  
"Don't hurt him." The words pushed out through my lips in that hysterical voice. They didn't hear me; they were too busy loading the stretcher into the ambulance. I watched them with blurry eyes. Blurry e- I was crying. I was CRYing, for Christ's sake.  
  
The strange feeling I'd had before was replaced with one even stranger. I just wanted to cry. Cry hard, cry long, cry in fits, cry in sobs.  
  
A shadow came over me. Who was th- oh. A paramedic. He said I could come with them to the hospital. He said something else, but I didn't hear it. I walked slowly to the ambulance, the crying feeling still there. I sat down in a corner of the ambulance and watched Justin. He was still unconscious. . .they were putting all these things on him. One of the paramedics jabbed a needle in his arm.  
  
"Don't hurt him," I said again, but I was drowned out by their urgent medical talk. Someone started asking me questions about Justin. I guess I answered. I think I answered. I don't know.  
  
The first strange feeling came back and combined itself with the second. My head spun. Now I felt like running and crying. Crying and running, running and crying. . .  
  
We got to the hospital. The rolled the stretcher into the ER. I followed behind them, still wanting to cry and run.  
  
Everything moved in slow mo, like in a soap opera. . .bright lights, slow voices. They moved him into a solitary room, told me I had to wait outside. I sat down with a hard thud on a chair. Something undulated against my chest. I looked down. The scarf.  
  
I'm wearing the scarf right now. I haven't taken it off since that night. It makes me feel like he's there - here. Here with me. Safe against me.  
  
I called Mikey. I needed someone. I told him that. Fuck. I said the word I dread: need. I told Mikey I needed him, but who I really needed was Justin. I still need him. . .I need him and it scares me. Without Justin, with him not near me, with me, him being how he is now. . .alone, vulnerable, me not knowing if he's going to wake up. . .it makes me feel beyond grief, like running and crying, screaming myself hoarse, taking his place.  
  
Mikey came and stayed with me. Every time he touched me, I felt Justin. I saw Mikey, Justin and I, running through the same hall I sat it to see Lindsay's baby. . .my baby. I thought that would be the last time I was in a hospital with Justin.  
  
It's been four days since the bashing. Four. . .I walk around like I'm abstract. I can do my regular work by rote, luckily. . .I think about Justin when I'm not with him. I'm with him as much as I'm able. I just sit there and hold his hand. Stroke his hair. Deb makes me go home at night to sleep. I don't sleep. I can't sleep. I lay here in bed and replay the bashing in my mind.  
  
It scares me, how I feel about Justin right now. Before he was attacked, I was fine. No, no, I wasn't. I haven't been the same since I met Justin. My demeanor before the bashing was the same, but not how I felt. I felt light. Happy. Like dancing. I went to the fucking Gay Pride Parade, didn't I? I was so blissful with Justin near me. Now he's away from me in the worst way, and I feel hollow. Miserable.  
  
Could I actually love Justin? Love. . .is there such a thing? Maybe. Yes. Need. Love is need. I need Justin. I'm giving to want and it feels right.  
  
The sun's rising. I can see it, orange and pink, through the slits of the window shades. I look at the clock again. 6:15 a.m. I feel the scarf against my neck as I turn over onto my side. I pull it off my neck and stare at it. His blood has dried on it, staining the white. I run it through my fingers like the pillowcase. I think I'll just lie here. Lie here with the scarf.  
  
All I have right now is this goddam scarf. . .all I can do now is give to want. If I wasn't so stupid maybe God wouldn't have needed for Justin to be hurt to show me the truth. That I need him. Need = love. It's a classic equation. Maybe one day I can say those things. I just hope it doesn't take another heartbreak to make me do it.  
  
  
  
~finis~ 


End file.
